Local youth clash with police in Baltimore

[G4b3n]

What do you make of it? According to CNN street gangs in Baltimore are collaborating with each other in an effort to combat police. Does this sort of collaboration have potential? Does it is resemble Panther radicalism?

Thoughts?

analysis?

[Guardia Rossa]

IMHO, it's just a confederation of opressed people. They will either be crushed or break away and crush themselves.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Sounds like cop propaganda.

[#FF0000]

struck by how much "lumpenprole" sounds like the leftist version of "thug" itt.

but i did see some pictures of folks allegedly from the bloods n crips hanging out with Nation of Islam people n declaring some kind of ceasefire or truce. Can't comment on it since I have no idea what the fuck is up with gangs in the city.

[BIXX]

I desire links.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Im sure rival groups are present at the protest but the only assertion about a truce I've seen is from the pigs in Baltimore that gangs are teaming up to "take out cops". It sounds more like an excuse to crush the protests than reality.

If true it might be cool but the same thing happened in LA and it didn't amount to shit. A revolutionary movement needs more direction than just fighting cops, especially when a lot of people seem to have a problem connecting cops to the state itself rather than just viewing them as some isolated group thats out of control.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The commentary on the violence has been kind of hysterical to read. "Why are they trashing their own shops??" As if the average black kid can afford to eat at a yuppie sports bar outside of a stadium.

[BIXX]

Lol, "their own shops"

As if the black people who are smashing the shops are like the black people who own the shops.

[#FF0000]

The funny thing to me is that the rioters are doing what people always say they ought to do -- they're bringing the riot to the rich part of town.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Or like black people own the shops at all. It doesn't exactly look good to see a group of black kids attack an all white crowd but it's not like anyone is interested in finding out what caused the escalation to begin with. In the videos you can clearly see the bar patrons shouting shit before everything goes nuts.

[BIXX]

Seriously tho I desire links

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

There's a bunch of reddit threads filled with racists discussing it. Im in class at the moment on my phone so I cant post them

[Ele'ill]

I really liked that one video that cnn had up of folks walking from cop car roof top to fancy car roof top to cop car roof top obliterating windshields and stealing the stuff out of the cop cars ++ everyone cheering

[Bala Perdida]

If true it might be cool but the same thing happened in LA and it didn't amount to shit. A revolutionary movement needs more direction than just fighting cops, especially when a lot of people seem to have a problem connecting cops to the state itself rather than just viewing them as some isolated group thats out of control.
Indict. Convict. Send the killer cops to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell.

The bad thing is that the LA situation seemed not to be sustained if anything. If it's hostile towards cops, it still has a lot of potential.

[Creative Destruction]

What do you make of it? According to CNN street gangs in Baltimore are collaborating with each other in an effort to combat police. Does this sort of collaboration have potential? Does it is resemble Panther radicalism?

Thoughts?

analysis?

It's hard to tell. I've been defending the riots in other areas, but it's hard to say exactly who is making them up. There's a lot of shit flying around: from it being disaffected "youths," to maybe being gangs, to the standard bullshit about it being outside agitators. Really the only that is clear is that it's an uprising in response to the system -- but that's a banal analysis.

The response to the riots, from the outside, seem to be the same thing everytime it comes up: this isn't "the way," we need to protest "peacefully," cops aren't the enemies, they're "destroying their own communities" and on and on. Apparently, if you defend the logic of a riot, then you should also, against all odds, fly yourself out there and participate in them for some reason that I can't ascertain. "Outside agitators" are being roundly condemned, yet the best that many people come back with is that you should go and be an outside agitator. These idiots make no sense a lot of the time.

The other thing I've heard is that the Nation of Islam is planning to form a "human wall" to try and stem the rioters from getting into downtown Baltimore, which struck me as odd, but, then again, NOI was always conservative and reaching for respectability rather than actually doing a damn thing.

[John Nada]

What do you make of it? According to CNN street gangs in Baltimore are collaborating with each other in an effort to combat police. Does this sort of collaboration have potential? Does it is resemble Panther radicalism?

Thoughts?

analysis?Anytime people unite against pigs is a good thing:), but it's according to the 5-0(know to be full of shit). Not sure about that area, but them working together isn't unprecedented. It's not like the 80's-early 90's. Sounds like at best they spied on someone talking hypothetical, if not bullshit. The protesters are far more likely to be proletarians.

The Panthers had a defined program. It was a proletarian vanguard party fighting US imperialism. It was more than just organizing the lumpenproletariat(a potential ally in an anti-imperialist united front led by the proletariat, but not a sure thing).

[consuming negativity]

Or like black people own the shops at all. It doesn't exactly look good to see a group of black kids attack an all white crowd but it's not like anyone is interested in finding out what caused the escalation to begin with. In the videos you can clearly see the bar patrons shouting shit before everything goes nuts.

and that's exactly why they show it. they paint it as a race war with the gangs of monkeys attacking the good and honorable american (95% white) police department and consumers just like you

they get people pissed off enough to go break cop cars and then use it against them and say they're less than human. well i mean yeah that's how you treated them but actually that's a human response to an inhuman society

so sick of the fucking lies man

[khad]

Pulled this from a gangbanger source, photo dated 4/27. Not going to link it.

It does purport to show NOI, Bloods, and Crips. (The NOI are giving the shahada finger)

http://i.imgur.com/dHgx0mt.jpg

[Creative Destruction]

sweet

[Alan OldStudent]

Back in the 1960s during the Watts riots, I remember TV news reporters talking about "roving bands of Negro youths."


http://alanoldstudent.nfshost.com/general_images/Dingbats/sheesh-002.png

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

[Sasha]

yeah, apparently the local NOI brokered a "dont take advantage of the unrest to pull stupid, counterproductive shit" truce between the different gangs (bloods, crips, BGF) and the cop loyal media obviously made this into some bullshit story about the gangs working together in some sinister operation to go and kill cops.

but yeah, lumpen sounds fucked up, these are just kids fighting back in the best way, wish more people fucked up cops (and to my european definitions these "riots" seem pretty tame).

[Antiochus]

Ugh, I wish I could support the riots more but seeing the NOI there just makes me cringe. I don't think its an "uprising" more than just discontent, the anger needs to be productively challenged to not just bash some cops or shops, but to bash the very system that is producing the anger.

[Asero]

Live from Vice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wks84RJxgh0

[consuming negativity]

i would love to see one of you idiots calling a protester a "lumpen" to their face

one day we will leave the vocabulary of the 1800s behind and speak of reality in the language that humans speak today

[Bala Perdida]

Ugh, I wish I could support the riots more but seeing the NOI there just makes me cringe. I don't think its an "uprising" more than just discontent, the anger needs to be productively challenged to not just bash some cops or shops, but to bash the very system that is producing the anger.
That revolutionary shit has it's own prejudiced problems. But from the looks of things, there's no reason why you can't support the rebellion because NOI is on the scene. NOI already denounced them as riots. Looks like you're home free for support.

[Creative Destruction]

Ugh, I wish I could support the riots more but seeing the NOI there just makes me cringe. I don't think its an "uprising" more than just discontent, the anger needs to be productively challenged to not just bash some cops or shops, but to bash the very system that is producing the anger.

So many people, including on the left, miss the point and logic of riots. They're not meant to be vehicles of change. It's a chaotic outlet in response to the oppressive conditions people are facing. The organization comes after the rioting, if it does at all. Riots are pressure relief valves.

[Tim Cornelis]

This thread is about street gangs. OP called them lumpen, not all protesters and rioters. Y'all need to relax.

[Ele'ill]

hey someone just told me that churches are getting torched, confirm?

[Palmares]

hey someone just told me that churches are getting torched, confirm?

Good to see black metal fans are getting in on the action aswell.

[Ele'ill]

or a response to community leaders siding with cops

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Yeah the peace police were really out in force. There was some video of a dude protecting a police line screaming "don't give them a reason". They don't need a reason guy, what planet do you live on? Hopefully his shit got torched.

[bricolage]

but yeah, lumpen sounds fucked up, these are just kids fighting back in the best way, wish more people fucked up cops (and to my european definitions these "riots" seem pretty tame).
maybe, but I think rioting against US police/national guard is a different kettle of fish to rioting against (most) european police.

[bricolage]

hey someone just told me that churches are getting torched, confirm?
think it was a building owned by a church but not an actual church.

anyone see the shite that the guy who wrote the wire was coming out with?

[Os Cangaceiros]

If true it might be cool but the same thing happened in LA and it didn't amount to shit.

Yeah that's what I was going to mention. The Bloods/Crips truce in Los Angeles was more impressive too because the violence was more intense at that time, during the mid 90's it was real bad and it's remarkable that the informal ceasefire lasted as long as it did

[bricolage]

The other question is how prominent these gangs are in the first place. I get the feeling that bloods and crips were a much bigger deal in 90s LA than 2010s Baltimore

[Rafiq]

Even if they are primarily lumpen, one must respect why they are fighting against the police - and how fundamentally related it is to their "lumpenness". The lumpen by definition have no political existence, and aren't capable of any real class interest. The argument that police are their natural enemies is plainly wrong in any context: they may hate the police en masse, but the existence of the lumpen relies on the existence of the police, it relies upon their illegality: their illegality is primarily their very means of survival. An organized offensive against police brutality is therefore not "lumpen" in nature, even if it is primarily involved by lumpen: it is an insistence against the conditions wherein they are reduced to lumpen-ness. This moment of truce between gangs is NOT an alliance of gangs, it is a temporal dissolution of the gang itself in favor of a higher purpose which they all hold in common. Traditionally the lumpen were those who would not become proletarians because they were predisposed otherwise, by Tue fortune of the marginal : today the lumpen are not proletarians because even a normal wage is a privilege in our de-industrial societies.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah, I think there's this weird habit people have of being all like, "Black = Lumpen". Probably, just as a numbers game, we're mostly looking at young workers. The fact that, also as a numbers game, many of them will someday spend time as hyper-exploited workers in prisons doesn't make them lumpen.

[cyu]

Speaking of gangs...

"I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
- Smedley Butler

http://i3.cpcache.com/product/354468228/the_police_are_just_the_biggest_gang.jpg

[Creative Destruction]

hey someone just told me that churches are getting torched, confirm?

A church-funded apartment complex and senior center went into flames last night, but it wasn't connected to the rioters. It was on the other side of town, in east Baltimore. The riots are happening in west Baltimore and downtown.

[Sewer Socialist]

Pulled this from a gangbanger source, photo dated 4/27. Not going to link it.

[picture]

It does purport to show NOI, Bloods, and Crips. (The NOI are giving the shahada finger)

I can find that picture all over twitter with the date 4/25.

There's probably something like a truce, not an alliance to kill cops or whatever. Not that I would object to such a thing, but if there were, we would know by the numbers of dead police, not because the police said so.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

what's getting lost, as usual in these 'violence is bad' narratives pulled by the media after every damn protest, is that the issue here is that young African-Americans are being killed by US cops through, at best, excessive force and, judging by some videos posted on mainstream sources, murder.

I mean, why the fuck wouldn't you be angry if you were a young black kid in the US and you knew that every time you even look the wrong way at a white cop you could end up with a head full of lead?

It's an outrageous situation and the lack of proper coverage is a really damning indictment of the state of the mainstream media. It's almost conspirational that nobody will say what needs to be said: that there is a fundamental racism that still exists in the USA, as it did pre-1964, and as it did in the Jim Crow era.

IMO it's pretty fucked up that so few people are willing to address this for what it is.

[Antiochus]

Ummm we don't live in a racist era, we live in a "racially sensitive" era where the real racists are the Black kids getting shot because they are 'thugs' and the poor white Cops who slaughtered them are the real victims because now their reputation is tarnished by an obvious act of self-defense.

inb4 someone doesn't get the sarcasm.

[Rafiq]

It is rather appalling that even to the slightest degree violence is criticized. Anyone whose heart is not filled with warmth at the site of the destruction of anything which the enemy holds dear - the very fabric of our social order, that which is refied, passively acknowledged - some shops and other innocent citadels of comfort... they simply have not learned the language of the damned.

Even if they were unprovoked, the mass violence is the only thing which is commendable. We all who haven't learned the language of revolution, it is enough to know that something is being done against the eternal racism of the existing order. While we all witness the violence of the existing order, the petite-bourgeois philistine talking about blacks being stupid and lazy, the "racial realist" "scientist" who isn't afraid to be "politically incorrect" talking about African genes being responsible for their plight, other such scum bathing, masturbating at the oppression of others, as though it is not enough that nothing is being done, it is celebrated. The yuppie piece of shit driving his top down with blue-tooth in his ear talking about how those blacks simply aren't "ambitious" or don't have the same "work ethic" as him... What is this if not violence? What is more SICKENING aside from the depravity, the soul-crushing conditions from the racism of the existing order than the reality that the oppressors - whose power hinges on a thread, are so confident in their "natural order" that they have the audacity to flaunt about it.

Many of you might apologize for, or even accept the violence of the Baltimore protests, or anything similar to it.. All the same many of you might secretly find something grotesque about mass civil destruction. Remember that these are mere crevices, temporal in nature, between an even greater permanent condition of grotesque injustice. We ought to savior these moments as a small justice, a small glimpse at the terrible justice to come when the existing order meets its reckoning.

[cyu]

If the ruling class didn't command the guns and didn't command the TV stations, they wouldn't be the ruling class.

They can afford to let protestors claim the streets. They can even afford to let protestors occupy the legislature. But if you go after the weapons or their sources of propaganda, then the real violence starts.

[John Nada]

Yeah, I think there's this weird habit people have of being all like, "Black = Lumpen". Probably, just as a numbers game, we're mostly looking at young workers. The fact that, also as a numbers game, many of them will someday spend time as hyper-exploited workers in prisons doesn't make them lumpen.Lumpenproletariat seems to be used for anyone very poor and/or engaged in "criminal activity". If so, they should be reached out to as class allies in the context of the racist US police state. But the proletariat was always poor, and often turned to or got accused of criminal activity. In Marx's day a steady career was unheard of. Had to apply each day for the job. Alternating between unemployed and exploited at work was the norm.

The impression I get in the way lumpenproletariat was use, it was more about strickbreakers, scabs, undercovers, hitmen, pimps and snitches. Not so much the lower strata of the proletariat, but objective class enemies recruited primarily from career criminals, the military and the very poor(taking advantage of their desperation). Maybe separating the two is needed, poor, criminalized and disenfranchised on one hand, agents of the bourgeoisie on the other.

[Bala Perdida]

I just gave a presentation on radicalism and rebellions. It went quite, well with an understanding audience. I had propaganda up declaring solidarity with Baltimore. No one dared question the use of violence. Not like on the web.

[Sinister Intents]

My mom said something about the state rounding up anarchists and communists, is she fucking with me or am I missing something?

I haven't had the luxury of seeing the news

[Ele'ill]

I saw a video clip today of someone getting the fuck beaten from them by someone for participating in the rioting. Video of it is in the link. It is kind of upsetting.


http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/us/baltimore-riot-mom-smacks-son/index.html



But Police Commissioner Anthony Batts thanked her in remarks to the media.

"And if you saw in one scene you had one mother who grabbed their child who had a hood on his head and she started smacking him on the head because she was so embarrassed," he said Monday. "I wish I had more parents that took charge of their kids out there tonight."

[consuming negativity]

I saw a video clip today of someone getting the fuck beaten from them by someone for participating in the rioting. Video of it is in the link. It is kind of upsetting.


http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/us/baltimore-riot-mom-smacks-son/index.html

in the video and the headline they say the kid was smacked "for rioting" and talk like he's some unruly kid being disciplined

but if you look in the article they actually got a statement from her and she said it was because she didn't want him to be like the guy who got killed.

in other words, she didn't do it because she disapproves of rioting but because she doesn't want her kid to get killed by the cops by being outside rioting

they misrepresented her opinion and you can't read the article on tv, just little shit like that, a constant bombardment, they never even show the real side of the story

[DoCt SPARTAN]

Ive always been a big on the idea that riots are very strong, and effective way to really get attention to a cause or situation..
.

I watched the whole CNN coverage and it was onesided.

"Riot is the voice of the unheard"

[Creative Destruction]

Lumpenproletariat seems to be used for anyone very poor and/or engaged in "criminal activity". If so, they should be reached out to as class allies in the context of the racist US police state. But the proletariat was always poor, and often turned to or got accused of criminal activity. In Marx's day a steady career was unheard of. Had to apply each day for the job. Alternating between unemployed and exploited at work was the norm.

The impression I get in the way lumpenproletariat was use, it was more about strickbreakers, scabs, undercovers, hitmen, pimps and snitches. Not so much the lower strata of the proletariat, but objective class enemies recruited primarily from career criminals, the military and the very poor(taking advantage of their desperation). Maybe separating the two is needed, poor, criminalized and disenfranchised on one hand, agents of the bourgeoisie on the other.

Marx never included "snitches," "strikebreakers" and what not in his definition of the lumpenproletariat, as far as I know. He included the entirety of people who made their living off of criminal activity or street vending, and he was rather vicious about it, which was kind of out of character for him, even in his polemics.

He was wrong, though. Fanon did the Marxist movement a huge service for reformulating this part of Marxist thought.

[G4b3n]

Note: I misread the nature of these clashes during the day of. I was too quick to take the bourgeois media's narrative on things before I saw actual outlets of information releasing analysis. These were highschool kids pissed off at the typical lack of autonomy that aliened and impoverished communities feel and went to vent that rage, which was not started by any street gang action. Which by my guess in hindsight, the bourgeois media claiming that it was an effort started by street gangs was an excuse to relieve the cops if one of those kids turned up dead.

Also note: I did not and do not refer to blacks as a whole as "lumpen", that is not only racist as fuck but just a complete failure of how revolutionary terminology has been adapted over the years. I refer to street gangs (bloods, crips, BGF, etc.) as "lumpen", and I believe these entities have actual political potential, and to not recognize this fact would be a failure to learn from the lessons of the 20th century.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I just gave a presentation on radicalism and rebellions. It went quite, well with an understanding audience. I had propaganda up declaring solidarity with Baltimore. No one dared question the use of violence. Not like on the web.

sry but do you think this is a revolution, lol

Anyone see the rumour that the gangs were now wanting to combat the violence and make it peaceful?

[John Nada]

How come it's never, "Fuck yeah! Labor aristocrats fucking shit up at that strike."?:lol:
Note: I misread the nature of these clashes during the day of. I was too quick to take the bourgeois media's narrative on things before I saw actual outlets of information releasing analysis. These were highschool kids pissed off at the typical lack of autonomy that aliened and impoverished communities feel and went to vent that rage, which was not started by any street gang action. Which by my guess in hindsight, the bourgeois media claiming that it was an effort started by street gangs was an excuse to relieve the cops if one of those kids turned up dead.

Also note: I did not and do not refer to blacks as a whole as "lumpen", that is not only racist as fuck but just a complete failure of how revolutionary terminology has been adapted over the years. I refer to street gangs (bloods, crips, BGF, etc.) as "lumpen", and I believe these entities have actual political potential, and to not recognize this fact would be a failure to learn from the lessons of the 20th century.Yeah. There's some psyop shit going on in the media and the internet now. Something to watch out for. It's designed to mislead, misinform and discourage people. Putting out there that the protestors are scary "thugs"(isn't WWP scary enough:lol:), and ignoring legitimate demands and grievances. Part of a low-level counterinsurgency. Cops think that way.

Somehow, things will get better if Black people just learn their place, says the capitalists. It's not like the cops are shooting Black people and snapping their necks like Freddie Gray. Jim Crow's over, no need to get all violent against a cop car!:rolleyes: Amazing how much the MSM is bullshit propaganda for the state.
Marx never included "snitches," "strikebreakers" and what not in his definition of the lumpenproletariat, as far as I know. He included the entirety of people who made their living off of criminal activity or street vending, and he was rather vicious about it, which was kind of out of character for him, even in his polemics. He was wrong, though. Fanon did the Marxist movement a huge service for reformulating this part of Marxist thought.IIRC Mao also mentions possibly recruiting to fight WWII, among others, bands of bandits who were workers and peasants that turned to crime out of poverty.

I'd hate to act like it's the bible and shit. Marx and Engels don't spell it out, but it's implied that they're dangerous because they're employed by the bourgeoisie in 19th century Europe. Lumpenproletariat is almost always mention as hired muscle or spies.
The second act of the drama has just been performed in Vienna, its first act having been staged in Paris under the title of The June Days. In Paris the Guarde mobile, in Vienna "Croats" -- in both cases lazzaroni, lumpenproletariat hired and armed -- were used against the working and thinking proletarians. We shall soon see the third act performed in Berlin.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/06.htm
There is moreover a section of the bourgeoisie that, quite indifferent to the interests of its class as a whole, pursues its own particular interests, which may even be inimical to those of its class.

These are financial magnates, big creditors of the state, bankers, and rentiers, whose wealth increases proportionately to the poverty of the people, and finally men whose business depends on the old political structure, e.g., Dumont and his literary lumpenproletariat. These are also ambitious professors, lawyers and similar persons, who can only hope to obtain respectable posts in a state where betrayal of the people's interests to the government is a lucrative business. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1849/01/22.htm
The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
The February Revolution had cast the army out of Paris. The National Guard, that is, the bourgeoisie in its different gradations, constituted the sole power. Alone, however, it did not feel itself a match for the proletariat. Moreover, it was forced gradually and piecemeal to open its ranks and admit armed proletarians, albeit after the most tenacious resistance and after setting up a hundred different obstacles. There consequently remained but one way out: to play off part of the proletariat against the other.

For this purpose the Provisional Government formed twenty–four battalions of Mobile Guards, each a thousand strong, composed of young men from fifteen to twenty years old.[73] They belonged for the most part to the lumpen proletariat, which in all big towns forms a mass sharply differentiated from the industrial proletariat, a recruiting ground for thieves and criminals of all kinds living on the crumbs of society, people without a definite trade, vagabonds, gens sans feu et sans aveu [men without hearth or home], varying according to the degree of civilization of the nation to which they belong, but never renouncing their lazzaroni[74] character – at the youthful age at which the Provisional Government recruited them, thoroughly malleable, as capable of the most heroic deeds and the most exalted sacrifices as of the basest banditry and the foulest corruption. The Provisional Government paid them 1 franc 50 centimes a day; that is, it bought them. It gave them their own uniform; that is, it made them outwardly distinct from the blouse-wearing workers. In part it assigned officers from the standing army as their leaders; in part they themselves elected young sons of the bourgeoisie whose rodomontades about death for the fatherland and devotion to the republic captivated them. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/ch01.htm
On these processions, which the great official Moniteur and the little private Moniteurs of Bonaparte naturally had to celebrate as triumphal processions, he was constantly accompanied by persons affiliated with the Society of December 10. This society dates from the year 1849. On the pretext of founding a benevolent society, the lumpen proletariat of Paris had been organized into secret sections, each section led by Bonapartist agents, with a Bonapartist general at the head of the whole. Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni,[105] pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème; from this kindred element Bonaparte formed the core of the Society of December 10. A "benevolent society" - insofar as, like Bonaparte, all its members felt the need of benefiting themselves at the expense of the laboring nation. This Bonaparte, who constitutes himself chief of the lumpenproletariat, who here alone rediscovers in mass form the interests which he personally pursues, who recognizes in this scum, offal, refuse of all classes the only class upon which he can base himself unconditionally, is the real Bonaparte, the Bonaparte sans phrase. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch05.htm

Notice how anytime the lumpenproletariat are mentioned, they're always doing shady shit for the bourgeoisie. Here's (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/letters/86_02_15.htm) a letter from Engels to August Bebel. He writes about a leader of a fake worker's group paid off by the Conservatives in Britain. He distinguishes between the unemployed masses, and the lumpenproletariat, who were paid to smash stores in a Liberal Party district. Not bad in itself IMO, but he mentions the cops seemed to be in on it, with the chiefs of police being a Conservatives(me personally it sounds like an insurance scam too). However in this letter (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1889/letters/89_08_27.htm) to Laura Lafargue, he mention very poor workers that were only a step above the lumpenproletariat. They would fight each other every day over who'd get the job, because they were only guaranteed for the day at best. He says it's good that the fake workers group wasn't involved. And I doubt it was because they were peaceful. This was long before a post-WWII labor aristocracy that got complacent and a sellout labor bureaucracy. Picket lines meant someone was going to get wrecked.:grin:

[The Intransigent Faction]

Seriously tho I desire links

I've seen this circulating and I'm not exactly sure what to make of it.

0HaaRZ8nxd4

[BIXX]

I saw a video clip today of someone getting the fuck beaten from them by someone for participating in the rioting. Video of it is in the link. It is kind of upsetting.


http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/us/baltimore-riot-mom-smacks-son/index.html
My dad showed that to me while laughing.

[John Nada]

Why is there all these "appeal to authorities" pleas for peace in the news? Clergy, politicians, celebrities, politicians, moms. You'd almost forget what all this is about in the first place.

[Bala Perdida]

That's why I'm going up north on Friday. Mayday in the south bay has it's biggest base in the church. Maybe there's a few radicals. Last year I saw a green party member. Ewww. They were already gonna protest police terror in Oakland. I'll see first hand just how crazy it gets after this, and report back here. They already blocked off a freeway up there on Monday in solidarity. Gotta get that going on here. As soon as I launch my project which I've only withheld for legal issues on collecting donations.

[John Nada]

Looks like the total opposite of what the government line was is going on.
Streets quiet by midnight as mass confrontation averted by community activists and Bloods and Crips gangs who pushed protesters back from police lines
However, another mass confrontation was averted on Tuesday only thanks to members of the notorious Bloods and Crips gangs, who teamed with community activists to push hundreds more protesters, who had demonstrated late into the evening, back to their homes as the curfew loomed.http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/29/baltimore-protests-police-in-riot-gear-disperse-hundreds-defying-10pm-curfew They're fucking helping the cops, along with the "community activists". Pigs are really going all out with this state of emergency.

[cyu]

My mom said something about the state rounding up anarchists and communists, is she fucking with me or am I missing something?


The closer you get to Washington DC, the more the suits shake in their boots.

[Ele'ill]

stuff kicking off in Ferguson in solidarity w/Baltimore

[Sasha]

since this seems to become a more general thread on the situation in Baltimore i am going to edit the thread title to a less derogatory sounding one.

[Sewer Socialist]

Looks like the total opposite of what the government line was is going on.http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/29/baltimore-protests-police-in-riot-gear-disperse-hundreds-defying-10pm-curfew They're fucking helping the cops, along with the "community activists". Pigs are really going all out with this state of emergency.

Assuming that is accurate (as well as the video of Bloods condemning riots), why do you think this is? Are these the orders of a wealthy leader? I suppose there's economic benefit to the status quo for them.

[Rafiq]

Because gang leaders, the real lumpen (I.e. beyond proximity), are reactionaries. The Italian mafia were "immoral, unholy and anti-social" yet when they decided to be good, they might have donated to, or helped the church - you know, "good things" you do when you're feeling guilty about the bad. But this good and bad are two sides of the same coin. The lumpen are the bloody hellhounds of capital, and before anyone it was engels who observed this. Even in Fascist Germany, it was criminals who were appointed the kapos in political camps.

[Bala Perdida]

Fucking saw the empty streets last night. Around 1am the CNN reporter was just walking through a ghost town patrolled by national guard. Sad sight to see. Then Obama pulls out one of his "No excuse for rioting" speeches. Never pulls up a "no excuse for murdering" speech for the cops.

[G4b3n]

Because gang leaders, the real lumpen (I.e. beyond proximity), are reactionaries. The Italian mafia were "immoral, unholy and anti-social" yet when they decided to be good, they might have donated to, or helped the church - you know, "good things" you do when you're feeling guilty about the bad. But this good and bad are two sides of the same coin. The lumpen are the bloody hellhounds of capital, and before anyone it was engels who observed this. Even in Fascist Germany, it was criminals who were appointed the kapos in political camps.

The criminals in camps in places like Nazi occupied Poland were Kapos because they were typically at the top or closest to the top of the racial hierarchy. The mentality was "our filth is better than their best". Not because of any fundamental class relations.
Same could be said about Engel's observations, which are just that, observations.

[Rafiq]

I mentioned political camps, so racial catagorizarions would have little to do with it. A communist doesn't have biological connotations.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

That's why I'm going up north on Friday. Mayday in the south bay has it's biggest base in the church. Maybe there's a few radicals. Last year I saw a green party member. Ewww. They were already gonna protest police terror in Oakland. I'll see first hand just how crazy it gets after this, and report back here. They already blocked off a freeway up there on Monday in solidarity. Gotta get that going on here. As soon as I launch my project which I've only withheld for legal issues on collecting donations.
Workers are shutting down the Port of Oakland in solidarity with protesters in Baltimore and obviously because it's May 1st.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Ugh I wrote a post and lost it! :mad::mad::mad: Take 2:

Democracy Now did a series of interviews with locals who had formed a spontaneous clean-up crew to clean up a pharmacy that had been torched and looted. It was ironic to see something that capitalists would be worried about or at least opposed to under normal circumstances---a display of consciousness of the interconnectedness and interdependence of units in a community (i.e., normally Americans are told it's not their concern if their neighbour has health care, but if they or their immediate family does)---helping to clean up and protect private property damaged by rioters.

In short: A spontaneous collective action demonstrated a consciousness which realized the interconnectedness and interdependence of units in a community, as well as the roots of outrage and destruction in systematic alienation and oppression. However, this consciousness did not extend to realization of the necessity of replacing the current socioeconomic system through struggle and constructing in its place a system which surpasses the alienation and oppression of the capitalist system. As a result, people were consciously limited to seeking the repair of dysfunction within the context of the status quo and hence in accordance with a vague ideological notion of "peace". It's presumed that systemic alienation and oppression can be overcome within the current system given the right state of mind. It's presumed that the social character of production in the sense in which it exists in capitalist society is a sufficient base for the best possible sustainable and functional democratic community. These presumptions need to be challenged though further spontaneous action in spite of the resistance that will face. A group of people mobilizing to burn down a store is one thing, but if that group doesn't know where to go from there, spontaneous momentum is lost, people are suppressed, and a new store is built and opened.

[cyu]

you know, "good things" you do when you're feeling guilty about the bad. But this good and bad are two sides of the same coin.

Reminds me of the warlords and random gangs that were armed and used as tools of foreign policy in Afghanistan and Syria.

[John Nada]

Assuming that is accurate (as well as the video of Bloods condemning riots), why do you think this is? Are these the orders of a wealthy leader? I suppose there's economic benefit to the status quo for them.I don't know. It ain't all a few centralized coherent organization; there's a bunch of independent crews under the flags of those gangs, with varying levels of organization. Even different crews from the same gang can have beef with each other and are closer to another gang. Saying they all united with the biggest gang in the city(BPD) for crowd control out of the kindness of their heart is absurd. Though they're are some who probably just want to chill. They could've been used as psychological warfare unintentionally. Cheaper than shit hitting the fan.
Democracy Now did a series of interviews with locals who had formed a spontaneous clean-up crew to clean up a pharmacy that had been torched and looted. It was ironic to see something that capitalists would be worried about or at least opposed to under normal circumstances---a display of consciousness of the interconnectedness and interdependence of units in a community (i.e., normally Americans are told it's not their concern if their neighbour has health care, but if they or their immediate family does)---helping to clean up and protect private property damaged by rioters.I wouldn't be surprised if it was a controlled burn for tactical reasons. Those smoke/teargas canisters get hot and can(and do) start fires. I think some of those fires in Ferguson might've been this too. Businesses are probably insured anyway, with the state of emergency.

Also I doubt it was "spontaneous" cleanup. Unemployment's high as fuck, and they expect people to do a nasty ass job for free?:laugh: Fuck that! They're day laborers, I don't think any of them said it was for free. If they did that, it was probably part of the contract.

[Vogel]

I refer to street gangs .... I believe these entities have actual political potential, and to not recognize this fact would be a failure to learn from the lessons of the 20th century.

Martin Luther King said something similar, with the exact same meaning. 'Gangs' are groups of people in a strong position to organize to help their community the most, if the city could work with them and them with the city. It was in a speech in Chicago, I think. I'll have to find the quote.

[John Nada]

I noticed that the workers they had cleaning the burned pharmacy don't have PPE on. They're supposed to have masks. Especially if was from the teargas. The fire creates soot, dust, ashes and toxic fumes. I hope they're getting paid, but even then it's likely minimum wage.:unsure:

[mushroompizza]

As bad as this seems a "street gang union" its actually so far beneficial. When they were interviewed on CNN they seemed respectable and so far they have not acted violently, they are just peacefully protesting. At first when I heard about this I thought of the Vice doc were bloods and crips unite to take down the KKK but the gangs just stayed at home and watched tv in the end.

[John Nada]

As bad as this seems a "street gang union" its actually so far beneficial. When they were interviewed on CNN they seemed respectable and so far they have not acted violently, they are just peacefully protesting. At first when I heard about this I thought of the Vice doc were bloods and crips unite to take down the KKK but the gangs just stayed at home and watched tv in the end.This in itself is good. Baltimore's got a pretty bad murder rate. A common racist meme repeated is "Why are Blacks complaining about police killings and not ones from the Crips and Bloods?". One does not negate the importance of the other. That they'd come together for Freddie Grey to peacefully protest sends a strong message. Shit compared to many other countries, these protests at their "worst" are like fucking monks. Not as good as taking out the KKK:), but they're irrelevant in all this anyway.

[BIXX]

Vaguely relevant


http://sicjournal.org/a-statement-from-a-comrade-and-baltimore-native-about-the-uprising-there/

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Looks like the demonstrations have spread to NY and Phillie as well.

[bricolage]

Democracy Now did a series of interviews with locals who had formed a spontaneous clean-up crew to clean up a pharmacy that had been torched and looted.
hmmm.
I'm suspicious of these things after the UK riots 2011 when the riot clean up pricks were middle class white people waving brooms and shouting looters are scum and applauding the police. dunno if it's different in baltimore.